Thursday, 15 January 2015

Technicolour Paint monkey

I was going to do an AAR for the club game on Sunday but here instead are 2 Sudan Cavalry circa 1882-89. These two figures were painted for my friend Matt, who was both pleased and delighted with them. He was not expecting me to go to so much effort in painting them. They are both Perry miniatures in 28mm. Both standard bearer and tribal leader were fairly straight forward to paint and being sculpted by the Perry brothers were a joy.

These are now in Matts collection and I hope they do make the table top sometime soon as it would be a joy to see them take the field. (Even if they are bullet magnets). The horses were also a pleasure to paint. the comparison horse armour was not! But now they are done I know the process so any in the future would and could be done much faster. Each individual triangle has to be painted by eye and I would have liked to have gotten them a little more even. Not that I am going to worry about it too much but I do know I can do better next time.

As you can see from the picture on the right while I may not have gotten the armour exactly right it is by no means totally wrong either. I did not look at this picture whist painting or I would have done far more Red as opposed to cream. But as this is just one historical example I am sure colour variations would have existed so it is not a huge issue for me. This armour for the horse would be good at slowing sword slashes, less good against lance/spear thrusts and virtually worthless to defend against a rifled bullet from that time. But in the desert wearing heavy enough metal armour to stop bullets would be highly impractical. So This was a good compromise for protecting the horse in a battle.

It is best not to try to work out how long it took to paint them both lest us just say longer than I first thought. But as mentioned above I think I could do them faster and better now.

These two figures earned me 24 points in the painting challenge. 10 points for each horse and rider and an extra couple for the flag and because Curt was feeling generous. (For which I am thankful).

Both are mounted on 25x50mm cavalry slotta bases with the holes filled in and plaster added to get rid of the base lips. I hate seeing the metal base edges on figures.

The Flag was commercially bought and supplied by Matt, all I deeded to do was attach it and crinkle it so appear blowing in the wind. Not part of the exercise I really enjoy but the result is worth it.

That will do for today I will post the American Civil War AAR on Saturday as I am already missing posting the weekly game.

Talking of which I think I have sorted out the details of the next one but will say no more for now as I think it deserves a post of it's own. And at this stage loads of work to do.

Very characterful and well worth the extra effort, Clint. I was quite surprised to see the armour, they both look very medieval. Not that historical example is much better, but it doesn't seem to include any metal parts. Are the miniatures sold as late 19th century?

Possibly some of Paint Monkey's very best - which I've seen at least - and I'm delighted to have something to enjoy with my Saturday morning cuppa now your excellent sea battle is over... a nice AAR instead. Splendid stuff Clint - as always :-)